Jonah: God’s Heart
LESSON SUMMARY
Jonah wanted Justice. God gave grace.
Jonah was angry that the wicked Ninevites didn’t get the punishment they deserved.
Jonah forgot that God also gave him grace — he was disobedient to God.
ALL of us have sinned; all of us deserved punishment. But God, in His grace, did not give us what we deserved. Instead, through Jesus, He made us right and made us family.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (Romans 3:23-24)
God’s heart is one of grace and compassion.
Even Jonah recognized that when He complained to God: I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. (Jonah 4:2)
Many people think of God as someone up there waiting to zap us with lightning if we do the slightest mistake. Every time there is a disaster (or “calamity”), they call it, “an act of God” or that God is punishing the people.
But they do not realise that our God is gracious. Our God is compassionate.
He is NOT an angry God — He is slow to anger.
He is a loving God — abounding in love.
He is a God who relents from sending calamity — the Act of God was to send His Son to die for us on the cross instead of judgment and punishment for all of us.
We are important to God. God cares for you and me.
The leafy plant sprang up overnight and died overnight. Jonah was sad and angry when the leafy plant died, even though he did not plant it or make it grow.
God created all 120,000 of the people of Nineveh and all the animals in it. He cared for all of them.
Jesus reminded the people to look at the beautiful flowers in the field as a reminder that God cares for us and we don’t have to worry about anything.
“If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? (Matt 6:30)
